Celebrating Saint Augustine the Hippo

 Today we in the Beaker Folk commemorate St Augustine the Hippo.

Augustine's mother Monica the Hippo was very concerned about him as a young hippo.  She worried that he spent too much time wallowing in the hollow flirting with female hippopotamuses*, and not enough time in church. 

And Augustine himself was aware of his failings.  After a particularly close encounter with a marine predator in the Nile, he said "God make me chased. But not yet.**" 

But Augustine's hippopotamizing came to an end after Pope Attenborough saw some English slaves in the market in Rome. Someone remarked that, with their leathery backs and big mouths and teeth, it was all very monotonous. To which the Pope wittily replied, "Non monotoni sed Hippopotami.***"

Augustine the Hippo was summonsed to Rome, from where Pope Attenborough despatched him to England. Making Augustine fairly downcast. As there were much more direct flights from Alexandria than from Rome. In the event, he could only get an Easyjet. Which instead of taking him to London, which he was supposed to be going to, landed him at London Canterbury International.

Realising that the bus wasn't going to be around for another 1500 years, and that in any case he'd have trouble squeezing through the doors, Augustine settled in Canterbury, from where he evangelised the people of Kent and Essex, and preached many sermons on the dangers to our souls of stilettoes and white socks. 

It was while in Canterbury that Augustine wrote his great and famous works, "Submersio" and "City of Mud." And left his lasting influence on the English people.

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*Yes.  Look it up.

** In Latin: "Numquam crocodilo arrideas." 

*** Don't blame me. I never had the Latin.  That's why I never became a judge.